International attention for Tripep’s new immunotherapy against HIV
At the beginning of 2008, Tripep received a patent for a new treatment for HIV. Now the international journal New Scientist Today, popular science publisher and the well renowned American scientific journal ”Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences” (PNAS) both comment on a scientific work from Tripep published in this week’s issue of PNAS . The research article was written in collaboration with the Karolinska Institutet and describes a totally new way of attacking HIV. In the article, the researchers describe the further development of Tripep’s RAS-technology – which was the basis for the patent – and how "molecular immune-adapters" make otherwise superfluous natural antibodies into attackers of HIV and HIV-infected cells.
All people have antibodies against the sugar structure gal(α1,3)gal which among others is expressed on the contagious intestinal bacteria Salmonella and Escherichia coli. Between 2-9 per cent of all our antibodies are directed against this sugar structure and are called natural antibodies. In the PNAS article the researchers describe how they chemically coupled gal(α1,3)gal to synthetically produced chains of amino acids, so called peptides, which in turn bind to HIV and HIV-infected cells. In the article the researchers show that with these molecular immune-adapters they can redirect very potent natural antibodies to fight HIV and HIV-infected cells.
”We have now shown that the technique works and that it can be applied as a completely new immunotherapy against HIV. Now we shall fine tune our peptides so that they become as potent as possible before we continue with clinical tests on humans” says Professor Anders Vahlne, who also is head of Research at Tripep AB.
Using other peptides with this technique it would also be possible to redirect natural antibodies against the sugar structure gal(α1,3)gal to combat other infections as well as cancer. The patent for these molecular immune-adapters is owned by Tripep AB.
For more information, please contact:
Jan Nilsson, CEO, Tripep AB
Tel: +46 8 449 84 80, mobile phone: +46 70 466 31 63
E-mail: jan.nilsson@tripep.se
Anders Vahlne, Head of Research, Tripep AB
Tel: +46 8 5858 1313, mobile phone: +46 709 28 05 28
E-mail: anders.vahlne@ki.se
About Tripep
Tripep develops drugs against chronic disease based on proprietary and other parties’ patented and patent pending technologies. Tripep is focusing on the following research projects; wound healing therapy ChronSeal® and a therapeutic vaccine against Hepatitis C, named ChronVac-C®, plus the RAS® technology platform. The Tripep share is admitted to trade on First North. Remium AB is Certified Adviser for Tripep AB. For more information, please refer to the company’s website: www.tripep.se.
In the event of any discrepancy between the Swedish and English versions of this press release, the Swedish version will take precedence.